Billy tearfully breaking down one night after dinner out with Heather and Robin, telling Steve how hard it is to watch Heather wear cute dresses and hair accessories and makeup when he can’t do that I’m self because he’s too nervous to go out and buy it, let alone wear it out on a date night, so Steve buys Billy a whole new cute outfit, a little daisy printed sundress and strappy sandals, and makeup and butterfly clips, and surprises him with it. While Billy’s busy going through everything and getting ready, Steve goes to their favourite restaurant and picks up dinner to go. He puts down a tablecloth and candles and tells Billy if he’s not comfortable going out, that’s ok, but that’s not going to stop them from having date nights where Billy can feel cute and comfortable.
Steve’s going to be here in less than ten minutes, thick hair styled back and the one-size-too-small black shirt they’d found on the clearance rack at Melvald’s tight across his chest, and when they show up at Wheeler’s house everyone will laugh and joke and groan and it’s fine. It’s supposed to be funny. It is funny. Billy had cackled for what felt like an hour when they came up with it two months earlier, grinning up at the Dirty Dancing poster outside the Hawk.
Billy stares at himself in the mirror, fingertips playing with layers of pink chiffon, gaze darting up to his mascara-lined eyes and hurriedly averting to the ground, and feels nauseous. It’s just a joke. It’s a costume. That’s all. There’s no reason why his heart should be so tight in his chest, why the sleek fabric should feel so soft and free on his thighs, why the black lining his eyes should make him feel anything.
Behind him, Robin stays silent, sitting on the edge of her bed and giving him a tight-lipped smile that’s a little too knowing for his liking, and when she stands Billy can’t suppress the tiny, involuntary flinch, the rush of danger danger danger she knows she fucking knows get out get the fuck out FIGHT, Neil’s voice roaring in his ears —
faggot
pussy
goddamn queer
what in the hell do you think you’re wearing
get that shit off your face
you’re a disgrace to my goddamn name
— but then Robin’s awkward smile is expanding, spreading out into a megawatt grin, and when she tosses Billy a tube of lipstick that definitely isn’t hers, he only fumbles it slightly.
“You look smokin’ hot, Frances,” Robin says, still grinning, and the fluttering flare of panic in Billy’s chest quells a bit, allows him to glance back at himself in the mirror, at his carefully-crafted hair and the mascara Robin had clumsily applied and the – the dress, fuck, and the panic and nausea are morphing into something else, something he can’t put a name to, isn’t ready to name, and then there’s the flash of headlights through the window as the beamer rolls into the driveway and Billy looks at himself, draws himself up, and leans forward to press the tube to his lips.
This one’s for you @mourntheantagonist! And @cherrydreamer, thanks so much for the loan of your name!
Harringrove April Prompt day 30: Lilies of the Valley! Neil had opinions about Billy's mom, and Billy's mom's makeup, and Billy. What he thought doesn't matter anymore, but Billy's still a little worried about bringing it all up to Steve. GNC Billy.
When Billy was five, he’d tried on his mom’s gold pumps and her rainbowy nail polish, and she’d laughed and spread her arms for him to stumble into. “Hey, glitter-bug,” she said, kissing his head all over until he giggled, trying to protect his neck from her attack. “How’s the prettiest boy in town?” she whispered, blowing raspberries down his chest and stomach, and then finally letting him up once he was giggling so hard he couldn’t breathe.
She’d let him sit on her fancy vanity stool, spinning him now and then so they could see how he looked from different angles in the three mirrors. “Oh no,” she whispered, her eyes very wide. “I thought you were prettiest from this side, but every new side is prettier! How is it, sir, being the prettiest,” she asked, offering him an imaginary microphone.
He beamed into her face, and cleared his throat. “You’re the prettiest,” he told her, his eyes big with anticipation, and sure enough, she yelled and scooped him up, dumping him on the bed and cuddling him until they’d both laughed so hard their lungs hurt.
“You are,” she whispered. “I made the prettiest boy in the world.”
“You’re the prettiest girl,” he said loyally, and that time she kissed his nose. “Anyway,” he whispered, “—you have…” he trailed off, reaching up to touch the sparkling powders over her eyes, and the bright greasy red on her lips.
She drew a shaky breath, pushing herself up, and glancing towards the door. “...do you want to play with my makeup, baby?” she asked, and he sat up too, springing upright so fast they nearly clonked heads.
“Can we?” he asked, keeping his voice low, like hers, but nearly vibrating with excitement.
She bit her lips together, tucking some of his curls behind his ear. “You know how there are some things we keep secret from Daddy, sweetie?”
Billy squirmed around to face her, nodding, and folding his hands like a grownup. “Like when you kiss Mrs. Sally,” he whispered, then, belatedly, cupped his hands over his mouth.
“Like that,” she told him, nodding. “If I’d kept kissing Sally, he might have found out, and not let me see my lil’ glitterbug anymore.”
“I won’t tell,” Billy said, shaking his head, his heart pounding with the weight of adult responsibilities.
“I know you won’t,” she told him, smiling, but she looked sad. “But I can’t do anything that might make Daddy take you away, can I?”
Billy shook his head, wondering, as always, why his mom had married someone who didn’t like either of them very much. He kind of wanted to ask, but she reached out and held his face, squishing his cheeks together like a fish, and he batted at her hands.
“Makeup is like that,” she told him, and he frowned, trying to understand. “If I put makeup on you, Daddy will be very angry,” she told him. “So we have to wash it off before he gets home, and keep it a secret, just like me kissing Sally, right?”
It didn’t make a lot of sense, because Billy had seen his dad fussing with his hair, and his ties, and he knew his dad wanted to be pretty too—but maybe, he thought, his dad was mad because he was jealous, and that kind of fit. He nodded seriously, licking his lips, as he wondered what the lipstick would feel like.
It felt weird and sticky, but it looked beautiful, and he gasped as he opened his eyes in the mirror, leaning closer to touch the mirror, and then touching his lips.
“You’ll smear it,” his mom said, smiling, and Billy yanked his hand back into his lap. He closed his eyes and felt the shiny powders brushing over them, his mom’s warm hand steadying his chin. Very slowly, so as not to jar her efforts, he kicked his feet in happiness.
“There,” she said,” rubbing her thumb along his eyebrow, and squinting into his face. “You’re adorable, honey. Your mamma did so good.” She spun him to look in the mirror again, and he stared as she kissed his cheek, and then redid his lipstick, because he couldn’t stop chewing at it, fascinated. “Other mommies would be so jealous of my lil’ glitterbug,” she whispered.
An hour before his dad got home, she popped him in the bath, leaning in to scrub his face gently, and he sighed to see it go.
“We’ll play again, sweetie,” she told him, kissing his forehead.
That night Billy’s dad clicked his tongue at her bright red lipstick, and went and got the Bible. He made them stand, listening, while their dinner got cold.
“‘Therefore I say unto you,’” he read, “‘Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. For the life is more than the food, and the body than the raiment.’ What do you suppose that means, Billy?”
Billy watched his mom shut her eyes, swallowing, and he tried to think, to get it right, but he never understood the Bible. He told his mother once that he thought they should have somebody write it all down that talked normal, and she laughed for the whole afternoon, and then told him that was another thing to not tell his dad.
“I thought that school was teaching him to read, and now he can’t even understand language,” his dad said, and Billy’s mom flinched.
“It means we should think about god more than looking pretty,” Billy’s mom said dully, and Billy watched her, and then his dad, wondering why he’d even wanted to marry her, because she was beautiful and funny and perfect, and Billy’s dad even got mad over things like the neighbor’s Christmas lights.
She didn’t wear the bright colors, after that.
Years later, Steve was driving back from picking up burgers, and Billy shoved a handful of fries in his mouth, and slurped his soda.
“You ever miss fucking a chick,” he said, weirdly flat.
“Uh,” said Steve, who hadn’t. “...um. Uh, d’you?” he asked, warily, and Billy shrugged, unwrapping his burger. He took a huge bite, grunting appreciatively, and Steve tried to think of what to say. “What...are you missing,” he asked, slowly, and Billy smirked over.
“Nothing big, don’t flip your shit,” he said, taking another bite of burger, and staring out at the passing scenery, as Steve tried not to shake him, or bite his lip, or look like he was flipping his shit.
“...what is this,” Steve asked, finally, clenching his hands on the steering wheel. “You cheating on me?!”
“No,” Billy said quickly.
“You want to? You wanna break up?! Where the fuck is this going, Hargrove?!” Steve hissed at him, and Billy sighed, letting his head thunk into the window.
“No, fuck you, I don’t want...any of that,” he sighed. “Calm your tits, Harringt—”
“Fuck you,” Steve spat back. “If you’re fucking bored—”
“No! I didn’t mean that!” Billy shot back, throwing a french fry at him, and Steve grabbed it and ate it, chewing with his mouth open, and his teeth bared. “Fuck you,” Billy sighed. “I just asked you a question, don’t get all pissed.” He sighed again, lowering the burger to his lap, and frowning past it. “I just wondered.”
Steve had kinda relaxed, waking every morning and seeing Billy sprawled next to him, his hair in his open, snoring mouth, and he’d forgotten he was Steve Harrington, the guy people left. “Fuck,” he whispered.
“I just meant the—they’re soft,” Billy said, glancing over, and then back down, his jaw working.
“You’re saying I need to get fat?” Steve asked dryly, through his teeth, as he pulled into the garage.
“No!” Billy shoved him against the door of the car. “Forget it.”
“Not likely,” Steve muttered. Billy shouldered past him into the house, and then ignored him until Steve went to bed, and Steve laid up in their bed alone. He didn’t cry much, but the couple tears that escaped went right in his ear, and he was tempted to just...go down and throw every porn cassette he’d ever owned at Billy’s head.
The next morning he got up and made bacon and eggs—he was hungry, even if Billy was being an asshole—and Billy came in and helped himself.
Billy’s eyes were swollen and red, and Steve didn’t know what to do with that—he’d never broken up with anybody he really liked, he thought, dully. Maybe it was hard. “Sorry for trying to have a conversation,” Billy hissed, and walked off, and Steve slid his plate of food aside, suddenly not hungry.
After a few minutes, Billy stomped back in. “What, you gonna stay out of rooms I’m in now—” he started, snarling, and then he stopped, and probably took stock of Steve’s head in his arms on the counter, and his breakfast getting cold. Steve jerked his head up, rubbing his face. “Fuck,” Billy muttered, grabbing Steve around the waist, and turning him enough to kiss. “I don’t…” he said, softly, biting his lip. “I don’t want somebody else. Don’t be a fucking dumbass, jesus, of course I don’t want someone else—”
“How the hell should I know?!” Steve hissed back, but relaxing, a little, into the kisses. “You just said you missed fucking women. I’m not one, if you missed that—”
“I didn’t say that,” Billy told him, taking Steve’s hands. “I asked if you missed it. Stroking your hands up here,” he breathed against Steve’s lips, and slid Steve’s palms up where Billy’s sides were shirtless and smooth under his denim jacket. “Feeling something...elastic, maybe,” he whispered between open-mouthed kisses, and lifted Steve’s hands up farther, to stroke over his nipples. “Something silky.”
It felt like the conversation had taken a sharp tilt, and Steve felt like the marble in a little maze, trying to avoid dropping through the holes. “...on you,” he whispered back, to be sure, trying to imagine it.
Billy was perfect already, he wanted to say, from the little softness over the waistband of his jeans where he’d stopped working out so hard, once he was away from his dad, to stretched pink scars that reminded Steve there were more places to kiss. But Billy was already withdrawing again, his shoulders hunching as he smirked, and Steve tried a “Keep talking.”
His hands were abruptly fuller of Billy as he leaned in, shoving Steve back against the counter. “I gotta keep things fresh, right,” he whispered. “Make sure you still want what I got. Maybe…” Steve waited as Billy searched his face, biting his lips, and then took a shaky breath. “Maybe dress up...a little,” he mumbled, losing momentum, and Steve hurried, feeling the need to catch some fragile part of Billy before it smashed.
“You wanna dress up for me?” he asked, making sure to grin, because it honestly sounded weird, but Billy wanted to—and Steve didn’t really give a shit about flowers, either, but even if they gave him hayfever, he knew to be happy when somebody picked him out a present. At least, he thought, whatever Billy was talking about was unlikely to make him sneeze.
Billy’s smirk went a little smaller as he flushed, and he laughed, shaking a little. “If—if you want,” he said fast, grinning tensely. “If you...if that…” he muttered, looking a little shiny-eyed, and Steve slid his hands around the soft, scarred skin of Billy’s back, and down toward the swell of his ass. “Imagine something bright down there,” Billy whispered, breathing against Steve’s jaw. “You could snap the elastic, pull me over.”
That sounded like Billy Hargrove wanted to wear lace panties, and Steve fought back an instinctive snigger, squeezing him closer, and trying to think of something to say, something that wasn’t “You’d make duct tape hot, babe,” or “Y’know we could not do that, and just fuck,” or anything else that made it seem like Billy’d asked him about something weird as hell, and important to Billy, and Steve hadn’t even listened. “Yeah,” Steve whispered, not sure what was required. “Sounds hot,” he said lamely, but Billy relaxed against him.
“Yeah,” he whispered, nodding, and laughing, and stroking his fingers through Steve’s hair so clumsily he almost poked Steve in the eye. “Yeah, yes, it’ll—it’ll be good, you’ll like it,” he whispered against Steve’s lips.
The next day Billy disappeared after school, and came home squirming and pink-cheeked. He wandered up like nothing was going on, resting his chin on Steve’s shoulder, and Steve turned and drew him in. Billy had his jacket buttoned, for once, and a flushed smirk, and Steve unbuttoned it from the bottom, sliding his fingers up over what felt like soft, elasticy cotton. It was a clingy little camisole thing, he realized, nearly a tanktop, nearly unisex, but the satin edging around the top, the thin straps, and the bright red put it squarely in the women’s section.
Billy laughed nervously. “It’s not even that pretty,” he said, glancing at Steve’s face, and then baring his teeth a little into the distance. “Fuck, this was dumb, in this little hick town, I couldn’t even find anything—”
It was stretched out across Billy’s chest, not the shape it expected to fit, and his nipples showed around the straps, the soft fabric clinging to his skin. “No,” Steve whispered, sliding his hands over ropy satin straps, and Billy’s skin. He ran a finger along the strap and down, his nail catching on Billy’s chest, so he shivered. “No, it’s—it’s really...pretty, Billy,” Steve breathed, and Billy reddened like Steve had never seen before, his smile widening into a beaming grin.
“They’re just cotton,” Billy whispered, “—but they were red, at least—”
Steve smoothed his hands over the soft fabric. He slid his fingers down the back of Billy’s jeans, and felt—yep, he thought, grinning as he felt Billy laugh, another thin elastic edge that definitely wasn’t Fruit-of-the-Looms. “Just cotton,” Billy whispered again, sighing.
Steve had bought lingerie before, but he’d never really thought about it for Billy—or even Nancy, who was too ticklish for lace, and liked the spontaneity of showing up and pushing Steve onto his back on the couch more than she wanted to set anything up with candles and rose petals. He felt a little guilty, though, seeing Billy squirming around, panting a little, his dick hard as a rock in plain cotton briefs, red or otherwise. “So you…” Steve started, and then stopped, uncertain what he was trying to say.
“What,” Billy bit out, glaring up at him, which looked...less than intimidating, in what looked like underwear for a kid, or somebody’s mom. Steve ran his fingers along the line Billy’s dick made in the panties, fascinated, and it twitched. Billy jerked his knee up, grinning, his freckles fading into his blush. “Quit it,” he said. “You’ll make me mess ‘em up.”
“...you like being...pretty,” Steve said, and Billy twitched, pulling his knees up and together. “No, don’t, uh, don’t pillbug up,” Steve told him, leaning in to hug his boyfriend’s knees. “Um, how...how pretty? What...what kinds of…”
“The hell d’you mean how pretty,” Billy growled, warily, and Steve bent his head, pressing a kiss to Billy’s tanned knee.
“You just...want pretty clothes?” he asked, as Billy took a shaky breath. “I just—I mean, you were talking about...girls. You want like…” Steve ran his thumb over Billy’s tense, curled toes. “You want I should paint these?”
“God, will you?” Billy asked, pushing himself up as he yanked Steve into a kiss, knocking them both off-balance so Steve landed on top of Billy in his soft, elastic cotton, and Billy groaned.
“Yeah, I’ll paint ‘em,” Steve whispered, kissing Billy’s hot face. “Don’t...really think you can get much prettier,” he said, feeling Billy’s cheek grin under his lips, “—but I’ll help. I might have something upstairs.”
“The hell would you have,” Billy snorted.
Steve felt indignant for a second, then kind of dumb as he shot back “I could wear nail polish, you don’t fucking know,” before he registered that it probably hadn’t actually been an insult, and he started to feel his ears go red. He cleared his throat. “...uh, no, though. I don’t. But my mom. There’s some of her stuff up there.”
“Oh,” Billy said, sitting up. “You...you’d let me use your mom’s stuff?”
“Why not,” Steve shrugged, pulling him up. “Maybe she’s got some nylons or something.”
“Holy shit,” Billy whispered, but he grabbed Steve’s arm, pulling him back around. “You don’t think she’d...she’d think it’s gross, right,” he asked, still smirking a little, like he was trying to keep it up. “She wouldn’t want some dude wearing her nylons.”
“You’re not some dude,” Steve said, rolling his eyes, “—and if she’s so damn precious about ‘em she can buy some more, come on.” He drug Billy upstairs—Billy was very manhandleable, in bare feet and a sheer cotton underwear set, and Steve tried not to think about the difference it made—and pushed Billy down to sit on his parents’ chintz duvet cover. He dug through her drawers, and found some nylons, and brought them over. Billy laughed, wide-eyed, and Steve reached down and grabbed his foot, thinking. “...y’know what,” he said, “—Mom used to do all this stuff to her feet, and I bet it kept her damn nylons from running.”
“...you saying I should go get a pedicure?” Billy snorted, and Steve shook his head, squeezing his boyfriend’s toes.
“Nah. Lemme see what she’s got, we can figure this out,” he mumbled, pulling out drawers. “Can’t be that hard.”
“...you gonna give me a pedicure,” Billy muttered, like he didn’t know whether it was a question or not, and Steve was about to roll his eyes when he finally found the right drawer.
“Oho,” he said, grinning over his shoulder. “The mother lode. Come look at the colors. I mean, they’re mostly kind of pink, but there’s some reds.”
The bed creaked as Billy got up and came over, and his breath hitched. He reached towards the lipsticks, and then jerked his hand back, and Steve grabbed the reddest one, and leaned to kiss him, softly, opening the lid. Billy closed his eyes, panting a little, and Steve kissed him again, because Billy’d probably wanna sprawl around looking pretty for a while without anybody smearing it, once he had lipstick on.
“Open your mouth, babe,” Steve said, and Billy did. Steve could feel the pulse pounding in the skin under his fingers, but he just brushed the tip over the corner of Billy’s mouth, narrowing his eyes intently.
Billy licked the tip of the lipstick, and Steve hissed at him, hsht! like Billy was a little kid, or a cat. “I can’t do this if you eat it,” he pointed out, and Billy laughed.
“It tastes the same,” he said, softly.
“...you eat it a lot?” Steve asked, realizing he had mouth open in concentration, and his tongue licking his teeth in the direction he was rubbing the lipstick on. He bit his lips together, smiling in embarrassment.
“I used to,” Billy said, letting Steve turn his head left and then right, and smiling. “Mom would dress me up.”
Steve paused for a second, at that, his hand on the lipstick stilling, and then he started again. “Dunno if I’ll do as good a job,” he said, and Billy laughed again, swallowing hard. “...maybe I’ll get better with practice,” Steve told him, and Billy grinned, yanking him in for a hard kiss. “Who-mmmph,” Steve protested, then leaned into it, feeling Billy sigh contentedly, and hum.
When Steve pulled back, his dick went half-hard just for the way Billy looked, leaning back against the side of the bed in his soft red underwear set, his eyes closed, his grin smeared and lazy. The red stood out, shiny and rich, and Steve wished—silently, to himself—that lipstick ever tasted even a tenth as good as it looked. “...jesus, that’s nice,” he said.
“I’m the prettiest, right,” Billy whispered, and a couple tears leaked from under his closed eyelashes. He sniffled as Steve lifted and turned his chin to fix his lipstick. “Shut up,” he said hoarsely, even thought Steve hadn’t said a word.
“...just thinking you look gorgeous,” Steve told him. “You look so pretty, babe.”
“...’life is more than the food, and the body than the raiment’,” Billy said, snorting a laugh, and Steve said “...what?”
“It’s a bible thing,” Billy said, his eyes widening as Steve pulled out a tray of eyeshadows, and held them up to Billy’s face, squinting.
Steve squinted, decided the green would make Billy look like he had a weird Christmasy disease with the lipstick, and pulled out the other one, pinks and golds.
“...it means you should worry more about following god’s word than dressing up like a slut,” Billy said, quirking his mouth. “‘Consider the lilies, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’ Like, God makes you like he wants, you shouldn’t...change it. Try and...look...different.” Billy sighed. “He used to make us say it whenever we asked for new clothes. I told him I might as well go to school naked, then.”
“I don’t remember the part in the bible where Jesus called people sluts,” Steve said, leaning in to kiss Billy’s cheek, and then concentrating on brushing gold over his eyelids.
“Just be as nature made you, y’know, don’t...try to be...what you’re not,” Billy said, smirking. “He never found out I wanted to wear lace panties.”
“Good,” Steve told his boyfriend, then whispered “God,” as he sat back. “...Billy, god made you a lily.”
“What?!” Billy laughed, scrambling up to go look in the bathroom mirror. He was quiet for a long minute, and Steve got up and followed, grimacing.
“I’ll get better with the little brushes,” he said, leaning through the door, but Billy was just making kissy faces at himself, entranced.
“I’m the prettiest boy in the world,” he breathed, and Steve bit back a laugh. “Come here.” Steve wandered over to slide his arms around Billy’s waist from behind, and kiss his neck. “...you like it, right,” Billy asked, and Steve nodded, squeezing him.
“Come on,” he said, “Lemme do your toenails.”
“Jesus,” Billy said, giggling, kinda, his eyes shiny, and Steve just held him there, letting him look.
The next day, Billy changed the oil in his car, his nails and lips red, and his face smeared with engine grease when Steve pulled him out from under the car for a kiss. While he was tinkering, Steve drove clear to the Indianapolis Victoria’s Secret. “I’m dating an Olympic swimmer,” he told them, having practiced the lie. “She’s got no tits and these big shoulders, and she’s hotter than anyone else in the world, can you help me out?”
